Things Learned From…
Ben Thompson — on why Elon Musk’s success at two companies is related to his struggles at Twitter
The defining characteristic about Tesla and SpaceX — what makes them so remarkable, not just that they are two very large companies that have been governed by the same person — is they are successes in the physical space.
Those are exceedingly rare in Silicon Valley.
There’s lots of big tech companies that are software-based, but other than Apple there really aren’t big hardware companies.
And it is meaningful that one person did both.
But my takeaway is that was not just an incredible accomplishment, it was a necessary prerequisite for Musk’s success because you can have insane ideas about physical space but physics fights back. There’s some things that just can’t be done.
In software, the problem with software is you can do anything. You want to do X, Y, [and] Z, you can do it.
And Musk with no constraints is clearly a disaster. But Musk with constraints achieved lots of things.
I think that’s how you can realize why you can have success in one place and not in the other, and it’s actually the same driver.
Thanks for reading! Hope you have an amazing day.
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